New Year’s Day by U2—The Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival 2022-‘23

                                                       New Years's Day from U2's third album War in 1983.

I watched Irish band U2 be presented with the Kennedy Center Honors last Wednesday on the annual CBS TV broadcast with some mixed feelings.  On one hand, the super group has a long history of churning out compelling rock anthems for almost every unjust conflict, social justice and human rights crisis, and international cause of the last 40 years, almost always on the right side if sometimes fuzzy about holding some powerful interests personally responsible for the suffering they decry.  On the other hand, the smugness, preening, and self-congratulations of the band’s leaders and main writers Bono and The Edge is more than a little off-putting. 

    U2 on the red carpet for the 2022 Kennedy Center Honors.

But it is natural to present their first big international hit New Year’s Day from their third album War in 1983.  The album had an extended anti-war and pacifist theme while the song was inspired the Solidarity movement rising against Soviet domination in Poland and local Polish Communist leadership.

The band came together as students at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, a secondary public school operated by the Church of Ireland (Anglican) in Dublin when 14-year-old drummer Larry Mullen Jr. posted a notice looking for fellow musicians to form a new band.  Five students responded, none of them very accomplished on their instruments.  Three of them—Paul Hewson (Bono) on lead vocals, David Evans (the Edge) on lead guitar and back-up vocals, and Adam Clayton on bass guitar—and Mullen have remained together as the band finally named U2 in 1978 ever since. 

U2 post-punk in high school pose with guns.

Originally inspired by English post-punk, they have evolved and re-invented themselves several times while honing their musical abilities and songwriting skills with the assistance of producers like Steve Lillywhite, Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, Nellee Hooper, Flood, Howie B, and others.

Over the course of their spectacular career U2 have released 14 studio albums and are one of the world’s best-selling music acts, selling an estimated 150–170 million records worldwide.  They have won 22 Grammy Awards, more than any other band, and in 2005, they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility. Rolling Stone ranked U2 at number 22 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.  Throughout their career, as a band and as individuals, they have campaigned for human rights and social justice causes, including Amnesty International, Jubilee 2000, the ONE/DATA campaigns, Product Red, War Child, and Music Rising.

New Year's Day and Sunday Bloody Sunday were significant anthems on U2's War album.

Despite proudly proclaiming their Irish identity and supporting the Catholic minority in Ulster—Sunday Bloody Sunday was another track on the War album—and supporting Irish re-unification, they have stirred anger and resentment in Eire for sheltering their enormous income in a Dutch corporation.  Threatened with prosecution in the Republic for tax evasion, Bono and the Edge live together with their families in a Swiss castle and cannot safely return again to Dublin.

They have also been criticized for lucrative corporate deals with iTunes, Apple, Bank of America and others, as well as to sucking up to some powerful global oligarchs and unsavory national leaders for support of the One campaign and other global charities.

But on the whole, their body of work and real world positive impact are beyond quibbling.

Happy New Year’s Day!